Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design

Joint

If you don't already have Alibre Design, you can get it here -- either by downloading the a free version of their software called Alibre Design Xpress, or by selecting a version below to purchase from Amazon.com. You must have Alibre Design installed and running for the Dovetail Jig to work.

Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design was build on the Microsoft .Net 2.0 framework. It requires Windows with .Net 2.0, which can be installed with Microsoft Update or by visiting Microsoft and searching for "Installing .Net 2.0". The .Net 2.0 framework is free, easy to install, and it only needs to be installed once.

Finally, the application uses a new deployment technology from Microsoft called "Click Once" -- this makes it easy for you to download and install applications, and make sure you always have the latest version available. If you're using Internet Explorer, simply download Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design, then follow the instructions to install. If you're using Firefox, be sure you have the Firefox Click Once Extension installed, then download Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design.

So to recap:

1. Ensure you're running Windows with the .Net 2.0 Framework.
2. Ensure you have Alibre Design installed.
3. Start up an Alibre Design session.
4. Download Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design.
5. Register Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design.
6. Start dovetailing!

Making REAL dovetails

"That's cool, but how do I make REAL dovetail joints," you ask? Well, that's not the topic of this tutorial but I've gotten that question so many times from visitors to this page, that I thought I'd include some resources for you, too!

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Getting Started

(This assumes you're using Alibre Design and have a basic understanding of how to get around in it.)

Start up Alibre Design Xpress and create a new part that resembles a board, say 3.5" wide, 0.75" thick and 1 foot long. It doesn't matter which dimensions you sketch and which you extrude. (I like to sketch the length and width and extrude the thickness.) Save the part with the name "pins". You should end up with somthing like this:

New part

Next select the face to which you want to add pins. The face will become highlighted as shown here.

Select a face

Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design requires a sketch with reference lines in order to do its work, so right-click on the face and select Activate 2D Sketch to create a sketch on that face. You'll probably be puttings pins into end of the board, you'll you'll end up seeing something like this:

Sketch mode

Next, from the Sketch menu at the top of the window, select "Project To Sketch...". Verify that the face you want to dovetail is in the "Entities to project" box (if not, reselect it), then select the "Create reference figure" option and click "OK". This will create four reference lines on the sketch, in the shape of a rectangle, conforming exactly to the edge you want to dovetail. The reference lines will be highlighted like this:

Reference lines

This is important: Deactivate the sketch mode (un-press the sketch mode button) so that the new sketch appears in the Design Explorer. Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design will only recognize sketches that are are not "activated" in your Alibre Design session. Also, as mentioned before, it requires the four reference lines on the sketch.

Deselect

New sketch

Now you can add the dovetail pins.

Modeling the Dovetail Pins

Launch Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design by double-clicking it's icon in the start menu. You should see a screen that looks something like the one shown below, and the "pins" part you have open in your Alibre Design session should appear in the "Parts" list.

Select the part

Select "pins" by clicking it, and the sketch (in this case "Sketch<2>") you just added should appear in the "Valid sketches" list. If it does not appear, make sure (1) it's not activated in your Alibre Design session, (2) it appears in the Design Explorer, and (3) it contains exactly four reference lines, forming the shape of a rectangle (or square).

Select the sketch, and just for kicks, increment the "Blind" value by an eigth inch by clicking once on the up arrow next to it. This will create half-blind dovetail pins by setting the tails back an eigth inch. The preview area shows what the result will look like. The white area represents a scaled version of of reference lines in the sketch, and the dark areas represent what will be removed when pins are created.

Actually, if you're extruding ("Extrude": extending the piece by adding pins to the end), which is the default, then the white area indicates what will be added. On the other hand if you're cutting ("Cut": leaving the piece the same length by cutting slots for the tails), then the dark areas indicate what will be cut away. These operations produce reversed sketches.

Define the pins

Now click "Make Feature". If it's the first time you're making a feature in this session, it might take a second for the application to connect to Alibre Design and produce the feature. When complete, the sketch will disappear from the "Valid sketches" box because it now belongs to the dovetail feature. Switch back to your Alibre Design part (and rotate it if necessary), you should end up with something like this -- the perfect half-blind dovetail pins!

Pins

Now let's do the tails.

Modeling the Tails

Create a new part with the same dimensions (3.5" wide, 12" long and 0.75" thick) and save it with the name "tails". Create a new sketch the same way as before, but this time select one of the sides of the board, like this:

Select the face

Activate the 2D sketch on this face and create the reference figures like you did for the pins. Again, be sure the sketch is not activated, then switch back to Dovetail Jig for Alibre Design. To get the application to recognize the new part, just double-click somewhere in the "Part" box. Select the "tails" part and then select "Sketch<2>", which should appear in the "Valid Sketches" area.

In the Step 2 area, select Tails so the application knows you want to model tails instead of pins. (The "Blind" amount should still be set to 0.125 inches if you haven't closed the application. If you did, just change this value to 0.125 again, either by typing in the new value or by clicking the up arrow.) In the Preview area you'll notice that the tails are configured along the length of the board, which is probably not what you want! Put a checkmark in the "Turn" checkbox at the bottom of Step 3 and the tails will move to the end of the board. It should look something like this:

Define the tails

By default tails are cut and not extruded. (Extruding tails out from the face of the board would be a bit odd, but if you want to you can.)

Now click "Make Feature" to carve out the tails. Switch back to the Part in your Alibre Deisgn session and you should see perfect tails.

Tails

Now let's join the parts.

Joining the Parts

Create a new assembly and add to it one of each part that you just created.

There are a variety of ways you can align and mate the two parts to form a joint. When it's all pulled together, though, you'll end up with an impossibly tight dovetail joint with zero interferences. Something like this:

Joint

Resources

To learn more about CAD, computational geometry, and geometric modeling, check out these great books: